Marielle gazed directly and teasingly into his eyes, reminding him of nothing so much as a woman who wanted kissing.

“Perhaps I’m wrong about you,” she said. “Perhaps—”

“You are wrong about me.”

Dylan wanted to say more. He wanted to say that he was a drifter by necessity, not by choice. He wanted to say that he already wanted to stay in Morrow Creek and she was the reason. He wanted to say that he would have given anything to believe things could be good and lasting between them. But that was unthinkable. That would only ensure, as it always did, that everything unraveled in the end. So instead he let his need for her say everything. He let his need for her—so long denied—move his hands to her face, cradle her jaw and pull her nearer.

“You’re wrong about everything about me,” Dylan said.

She was wrong—because he’d made damn sure she would be.

He’d made sure everyone would be. For so long now.

Marielle hauled in a breath—probably to argue. But by then his mouth was already meeting hers.

Author Note

Thank you for joining me for another Morrow Creek story! I absolutely love sharing my little Arizona Territory town with you. I’m so thrilled to bring you Marielle and Dylan’s adventures, too! I hope you enjoy reading about them.

There’s more for you in the rest of my Morrow Creek series, too! It includes Notorious in the West, The Honour-Bound Gambler, The Bride Raffle, Mail-Order Groom, and several others—including some short stories and an eBook exclusive—all set in and around my favourite corner of the Old West. I hope you’ll give one (or all!) of them a try.

If you’d like a sneak peek first, you can find complete first-chapter excerpts from all my bestselling books at my website: lisaplumley.com. While you’re there you can also sign up for personal new book alerts, download an up-to-date book list, get the scoop on upcoming books, request reader freebies and more. I hope you’ll stop by today!

As always, I’d love to hear from you! You can follow me on Twitter @LisaPlumley, ‘like’ my Facebook page at facebook.com/lisaplumleybooks or just send an email to lisa@lisaplumley.com.

Best wishes, until next time.

Morrow Creek Marshal

Lisa Plumley

www.millsandboon.co.uk

USA TODAY bestselling author LISA PLUMLEY has delighted readers worldwide with more than three dozen popular novels. Her work has been translated into multiple languages and editions, and includes Western historical romances, contemporary romances, paranormal romances, and a variety of stories in romance anthologies. She loves to hear from readers! Visit Lisa on the web, ‘friend’ her on Facebook, or follow her on Twitter @LisaPlumley.

To John, with all my love.

Contents

Cover

Introduction

Author Note

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Extract

Copyright

Chapter One

April 1885, Morrow Creek,

Northern Arizona Territory

At Jack Murphy’s popular saloon, cowboys bellied up to the bar alongside newspaper editors, mercantile owners and railway workers. Miners and lumbermen tested their luck at the gambling tables, hoping to best gullible greenhorns or visiting card sharps—or simply to suss out which men fell into which of those two categories. Music plunked out at two cents per song—but only if those bits were tipped directly into the musician’s overturned bowler, which he customarily placed atop his upright corner piano. Overlying it all came the tang of whiskey, the rich haze of cigarillo smoke and the earnest hum of business being conducted, gossip being told and men being men.

Among those men, Marielle Miller felt both comfortable and celebrated. For the past twelve of her thirty years, she’d been spending her nights in places just like Murphy’s saloon, kicking up her skirts for profit and honing her skills at dancing—and managing the men who watched her dance. Being both applauded and respected by those men was a tricky business. It was one Marielle had mastered, too. Unique among her fellow dance hall girls, Marielle excelled at making sure no one man stepped his spurred boots or battered brogans out of line—or got wrongheaded ideas about the smiles she tossed out while performing, either.

Her smiles were for show, meant to charm and entice. As near as Marielle could tell, they rightly did both of those things. But her smiles were all performance, approximately as genuine as the horsehair padding cleverly sewn into her costume to augment the curve of her hips and the swell of her bustline.

It wasn’t that Marielle didn’t enjoy dancing. She did. Especially with her current close-knit troupe and especially for a generous boss like Jack Murphy. But she didn’t particularly enjoy the artifice involved. Or the wariness, either. More than most girls, Marielle knew she could not afford to invite the attention of a scoundrel. Or any man, really. She had too many responsibilities to see to. Until those responsibilities were properly sorted, there would be no offstage flirtation for her.

That’s why, as Marielle stepped onstage in the full saloon early one ordinary Thursday evening, she began by sweeping the boisterous crowd with an assessing look. It was easy to spot the infatuated ranch hand, new to Morrow Creek, who nursed a single ale while casting lovesick glances at Jobyna Lawson, Marielle’s fellow dancer and closest friend. It was similarly simple to identify the high-rolling faro player who believed his string of luck at the gaming table would also assure him feminine company for the night. Fortunately, Jack Murphy’s faithful barkeep and cook Harry would correct that misapprehension quickly.

The dance hall girls at Murphy’s saloon weren’t disreputable. Their company wasn’t for sale, either.

They were all—like Marielle—entertainers, first and last.

Handily proving her proficiency at her profession, Marielle high-stepped across the stage in unison with her troupe, lit by blazing lamps and accompanied by rollicking piano music. She swooshed her skirts and then skipped to the side, executing a perfectly timed move—all while continuing her customary study of the saloon’s patrons, both regulars and strangers. Alertness benefitted a dancing girl, Marielle knew. More than once, she’d been forced to duck flying bottles, shimmy away from shattering chairs or retreat to the back of the house to avoid gunfire.

At Jack Murphy’s saloon, in peaceable Morrow Creek, such antics were almost unheard of. Certainly, newcomers to town sometimes tested the tranquility of the saloon—and the resolve of the townspeople to keep it that way—but those ruffians never got far. Typically, one or more of the brawnier locals stepped in before disagreements could progress to full-on brawls. When that approach failed, Sheriff Caffey and his deputy Winston were available to handle problems—at least notionally—but most of the time, the lawmen’s intervention wasn’t necessary.

It was a good thing, too. Almost everyone in town knew that Sheriff Caffey and Deputy Winston were too busy enjoying the privileges of their positions to actually work on behalf of their badges. In a less tranquil town, they would have been ousted long ago. But in Morrow Creek, the need for a lawman arrived as infrequently as snow in the low country and lasted about as long. More often than not, the members of the Morrow Creek Men’s Club found a way to deal with wrongdoers themselves.

Raising her arms and smiling more broadly, Marielle sashayed to the opposite side of the stage, her footsteps perfectly timed with her troupe’s. From her new vantage point, she surveyed the men playing cards at a nearby saloon table. As the eldest member of her company, Marielle was responsible for seeing to her fellow dancers’ safety. Even as she winked at the audience and then went on dancing, she went on watching, too.

Atop her head, her feathered and spangled headpiece bobbed with her movements, secured to her dark, upswept hair with multiple pins. Around her skipping feet, her costume’s fancifully adorned skirts swirled. Her ensemble was of her own design, made for free movement and utmost prettification. It provided flash, flattery and—unlike ordinary dresses—necessary if minimal modesty during high-stepping kick routines.

Thanks to her skill with a needle and thread, Marielle augmented her income from dancing quite conveniently. Along with supplying costumes to her hardworking fellow dancers, she also took in ordinary mending, tailoring and other seamstress’s work for her neighbors. Between the two—her dancing and her sewing—she’d amassed a sizable nest egg...which was undoubtedly providential, given that Marielle had begun feeling a little less excited than usual by the prospect of stepping onstage.

Just once, Marielle imagined, she’d have liked to have gone home at the end of a late evening not smelling of cheroots, Old Orchard and Levin’s ale. She’d have liked to have had a more amenable schedule—one that didn’t bring her to work at a time when most women were settling around the hearth with their families. She’d have liked to have had a family of her own, for that matter, with children to care for.

She’d have liked not to be required to notice—and deal with—the one dance hall girl in their troupe who was inevitably behaving foolishly.

This time, it was Etta, a girl who was newly arrived from cattle country. Unfortunately, she appeared to have about as much gracefulness and common sense as a dolled-up heifer from her hometown. Plainly unaware of the need to retain a certain sensible distance from the saloon’s customers, Etta was flirting with one of them instead. Even as their current dance reached its finale, Etta broke routine to pout and pose and toss pantomime kisses at the man while bawdily tossing her skirts.

Seeing those shenanigans, Marielle groaned inwardly. It was true that they needed another dancer in their troupe. Jobyna was getting married soon to her beau, Gordon “Snub” Sterling, so she wouldn’t be performing anymore. That meant replacing her was a necessity. All the same, Marielle had recommended against allowing giggly Etta to try out tonight. She knew a calamity in the making when she saw it. Softhearted Jack Murphy had seen things differently. So had his wife, infamous suffragist Grace Murphy, who believed every woman deserved a chance to shine.

Currently, Etta was shining in the direction of a particularly disreputable-looking saloongoer. Dark haired, shadow bearded and broad shouldered, the man in Etta’s sights packed eight feet of manliness in a six-foot package. He was brawny, relaxed and curiously uninterested in the glass of whiskey Harry had poured him. He was also, Marielle couldn’t help noticing, wearing a gun belt with his clean and pressed dark clothes. Overall, the man had trouble written all over his attentive expression...only Etta was too dense to realize it.

Given a saloon full of potential husbands—because doubtless that’s how foolish Etta saw those men who watched her dance with their tongues all but lolling—their troupe’s giggly cattle country upstart had singled out the worst possible choice. He looked, to Marielle’s dismay, like a typical territorial drifter—albeit, an absurdly handsome one—ready to pick up and pull foot with no notice and no cares for anyone he left behind.

But if she were honest...didn’t all men look that way to her?

There wasn’t a man alive who could be counted on, Marielle knew. Not the ones who wooed her with raw gold nugget tips. Not the ones who shyly stared at the saloon’s sawdust-covered floor rather than meet her measuring gaze. Not the ones who proposed debauchery and ruination and an end to her wonderings about exactly what went on between cajoling men and the unwise women who loved them during a single scandalous evening at the nearby Lorndorff Hotel. Not even the ones who were related to her.

Marielle had never lacked for opportunities to give away her heart. She’d simply refused to accept any of them. Only a very reckless woman would have allowed herself to believe a man was the answer to her prayers—at least not those involving heavy equipment, exacting machinery or ornery animals...and maybe not even then. Only a woman like silly, still flirting Etta would have risked her potential employment with the company for the sake of trying to catch the eye of a wandering gunslinger.

Even as Marielle danced closer to Etta, trying to gain her cohort’s attention without breaking rhythm, the drifter proved his fickleness by letting his gaze meander away from seductive, overpainted Etta...directly to Marielle. Confidently, the stranger watched her dance. His dark-eyed gaze took in her swooshing skirts, her self-assured steps and her lace-adorned bosom, each in turn, then traveled up to her face. Shockingly, his attention lingered there. It was almost as though he truly saw her. Not her flashy costume, not her titillating movements, not her fan or her lightly painted lips or her spangled hips. Just...her.

Deeply unsettled, Marielle faltered. On her way to silently but pointedly confront Etta, Marielle missed the next step. She could have sworn the rascal at the front row table actually quirked his lips in amusement at her mistake—but a moment later, she had larger problems to deal with. Literally. Because as she stumbled, Marielle accidentally veered in the direction of a drunken stageside cowboy who wasted no time in grabbing her.

“Yee-haw!” he whooped, clutching a fistful of spangles. “Lookee here, boys! I done lassoed myself a dance hall girl!”

More annoyed with Etta than with the cowboy—who really couldn’t be expected to behave himself under the influence of that much mescal—Marielle attempted to dance away. Her exuberant admirer held fast, almost toppling her off the stage.

All right, then. The time for being accommodating was over.

Nearby, the piano player helpfully kicked into a new song, obviously noticing Marielle’s predicament and trying to distract the cowboy into releasing her. Likewise, the other dancers around her sashayed into a new routine. They stepped in unison, twirling their fans. They gave winsome smiles. Their high-buttoned shoes flashed beneath their swirling skirts, providing ample entertainment with color and movement...but the cowboy held fast, even as Marielle gave a determined yank away from him.

Fine. Fed up with being patient, she flashed him a direct, beguiling smile. Seeing it, the cowboy started. His face eased.

Any second now, he’d let her go, Marielle knew. The grabby types always did. Most of the time, they meant well. Some of the time, they even expected her to be flattered by their ham-handed attentions. Typically, when Marielle appeared to return their ardor, the ranch hands, cowboys and other small-time miscreants who tried to manhandle her came to their senses and behaved like gentlemen instead. Given the possibility of genuinely earning her attention, those men customarily gave up their groping.

Just as she’d known it would, the power of her smile worked its magic. The cowboy blinked. He grinned. He started to let go...

...And an instant later, all tarnation broke loose.

The drifter from the next table stood. Sternly, he said something to the cowboy. Marielle had the impression he’d been speaking to the man before then, but she hadn’t heard him above the piano music. The cowboy shook his head in refusal. Then belligerently, with his fellow cowpunchers’ encouragement, the cowboy shouted something back. Prudently seizing the opportunity provided by his distractedness, Marielle pulled away again.

Before she could free herself, the drifter’s demeanor changed. He looked...fearsome. That was the only word for it.

Taken aback by the change, she gawked. Several other saloon patrons stood and shouted, rapidly choosing sides in the developing melee. Marielle had a moment to examine the newly disorderly saloon, belatedly realize that most of Morrow Creek’s unofficial town leaders—including Daniel McCabe, Adam Corwin, Griffin Turner and others, weren’t in attendance—and worry that things might go terribly wrong. Then the stranger pulled back his arm, grabbed the cowboy and punched him. With authority.

* * *

Dylan Coyle wasn’t sure where he found the authority to deliver a sobering sockdolager to the grabby knuck who’d been manhandling the watchful, dark-haired dance hall girl. He wasn’t part of Morrow Creek’s self-appointed slate of local honchos. He had no duty to fulfill. In fact, he’d deliberately chosen not to embroil himself in a position of authority while in town.

Folks tended to want to rely on him, Dylan knew. But he was a wandering man. He wanted no part of putting down roots—especially not in a town like Morrow Creek. As a community full of like-minded homesteaders, traders, workers and families, it was as wholesome as apple dumplings and as cozy as flannel sheets. It was the wrong kind of place for a no-strings type like him. That hadn’t always been the case, but it was now.

In fact, now that he was done with the job he’d taken on in Morrow Creek—working as a security man for the mysterious proprietress of the Morrow Creek Mutual Society—Dylan was on his way out of town. He’d only stopped in Jack Murphy’s saloon for a parting whiskey before catching the next train farther west.

But there were some things a good man couldn’t put up with. Allowing a pie-eyed cowpuncher to inconvenience a woman was one of them. Letting that same knuck upset Dylan’s glass of good whiskey as he’d stumbled toward the stage was another. Now, Dylan realized with a frown, every time he put on his favorite broad, flat-brimmed black hat, he’d smell like a distillery.

“Just remember,” Dylan told the cowboy as the liquored-up fool swayed in his grasp, “I asked you nicely to let go. Now I’m going to ask you nicely to apologize to the lady. If you don’t—”

The dupe shouted something that was definitely not apologetic. It wasn’t suitable for ladies’ delicate ears, either. Hearing it, Dylan deepened his frown. If there was anything he believed in more than the necessity of savoring a good whiskey when it came his way, it was the sanctity of women. Evidently, here in the Western territories, they brewed up cowboys on the wrong side of sensible.

“You’re going to want to apologize for that, too.”

As the knuck glanced up at the dance hall girl, Dylan gave the cowboy a mighty yank, aiming to surprise the man into properly squaring off with him instead of catching hold of her sparkly skirts again. Just as he’d intended, the cowboy reeled. He gave a blustery wheeze that stank of ale, then staggered and waved his arm, too goose jointed to quickly regain his balance.

With his usual sense of fairness, Dylan waited the few ticks it would take for the cowboy to get his feet under him. He didn’t want to take advantage of the man’s inebriated condition. All he wanted was for the cowpoke to leave alone the dance hall girl—not the least because he’d be damned if she wasn’t the oldest such female entertainer Dylan had ever encountered.

He wasn’t sure she could withstand too much rough handling. Not that any woman could be expected to keep her feet when the legless cattleman who’d been clumsily pawing her staggered again, lurched, then fell plumb backward with much greater velocity than Dylan had intended.

Damnation. He hadn’t thought he’d grabbed him that hard. Perceptibly, he had. He’d accidentally tipped the last domino, too. Because the cowboy had managed to catch hold of the damn near elderly dance hall girl again. Now Dylan’s well-intentioned protectiveness had put her in an even more precarious position.

With a surprised whoop and a flurry of skirts, she fought against the sudden frontward jerk caused by the cowboy’s fall. She pinwheeled her arms in a search for balance—and almost found it, too. For a single, breath-holding moment, she tottered at the stage’s edge. Then her ankle buckled at an unmistakably sideways angle. Crying out, the dance hall girl pitched forward.

She was falling. Instantly seeing her predicament, Dylan lunged toward her. He held out his arms, ready to catch her. Before he could think twice about his decision, he received the gift he hadn’t wanted and had no present use for: an armful of sweet-smelling, silky-haired, caterwauling female.

It all happened in an instant. With an oof, they both collapsed beside the cowboy on the sawdust-covered floor, saloongoers scattering to all sides of them with shouts of surprise.

Ouch. Dylan winced, still cradling her. Stupidly, as it turned out, since she’d landed atop him like a hundred-pound sack full of nothing but elbows and knees. She’d obviously been gifted with multiple sets of each—or at least that’s what it felt like. He wondered where the hell her admirably curvy hips and delectably full bosom had gone. He held fast anyway.

Their ignoble pileup defused the developing saloon fight. Instead of throwing punches, saloongoers hollered, pointed and laughed. The piano music kept on tinkling. Chairs scraped backward, then were settled back into place. Dylan had a moment to register the soft roundness of the dance hall girl’s rear end in his cupped hand, to experience the feathery, sneeze-inducing interference of her sparkly headpiece in his face...and then to tardily understand that she was trying to get away from him.

That was unusual. Most women tried to get closer to him. Given any excuse, they snuggled nearer and flirted—just like the other garishly painted and less interesting blonde dance hall girl had done earlier. But this one was different. Also, Dylan observed amid the ruckus, while parts of her body might be soft, her gouging knees and prodding elbows most certainly weren’t.

Even as Dylan came to grips with that, the dance hall girl kneed him again, coming dangerously close to his manly bits.

Involuntarily, he loosened his hold on her. Just by a fraction, but it was enough for her to take advantage of.

That was all right with him. Argh. Chivalry was one thing. Volunteering to be made a functioning eunuch in an unexpected dancing girl tussle was another. Dylan valued his masculinity.

Even if she didn’t. Clearly. With a determined final effort, the dance hall girl rolled sideways, adding a vicious and maybe not accidental belly squash to her initial blow as she went. She scrambled onto her hands and knees, then sat on her backside instead. He glimpsed her annoyed profile, heard her murmured grumble of exasperation as she adjusted her feathery headpiece, and briefly entertained the idea that she might not be as properly grateful for his intervention as he’d hoped.

Gingerly, Dylan moved a fraction. Everything seemed fine in the downstairs department. He released a long, pent-up breath.

He couldn’t believe he’d come to her rescue and almost gotten himself a banged-up set of punters for his trouble. Was she going to apologize? Or thank him? Or even acknowledge him?

“I’m so sorry, ma’am.” The cowboy’s thick drawl reached Dylan at the same time as his sense of being affronted did. Obliviously, the knuck kept talking. “Are you all right?”

“I was wondering the same thing about you,” the dance hall girl had the gall to say—to the cowboy. “Are you hurt bad?”

Dylan glanced up in time to see the fool’s shy smile.

“I’m just fine, ma’am. It’s yourself I’m worried about.”

The cowboy’s weathered hand—sporting a full set of predictably grime-encrusted fingernails—entered Dylan’s field of vision. Evidently, the cowhand had discovered gallantry. He was trying to help the dance hall girl up off the floor. She seemed to be hesitant about that. She also seemed, as she frowned anew, concerned about putting too much weight on her injured ankle.

Rightly so, Dylan reckoned. That onstage crumple had looked serious. Ankles, feet and legs weren’t meant to go in contradictory directions—not while connected to the same person. Thanks to her whirling skirts, he’d had a clear enough view to know that’s exactly what had happened to her a second ago.

“I didn’t mean to trip you up.” The cowboy offered dubious encouragement by waggling his filthy fingers at her. “I’m awful sorry about that, ma’am. It’s just that you’re so pretty. I plumb couldn’t help myself. Catching ahold of you was like catching a beautiful, sparkling star, right here at Murphy’s.”

Still on the floor, Dylan rolled his eyes. Then he got to his own hands and knees, counting on getting upright in time to help the dance hall girl to her feet himself. As he should.

“Well, aren’t you sweet?” she cooed to the cowpuncher while she cautiously tested her ankle’s strength, speaking just as pleasantly as though the fool hadn’t caused her to fall offstage. “It’s only too bad that I never, ever go spoony over men who frequent saloons. It’s my one ironclad rule, you see.”

“You...what?” The cowboy whined with confusion. Then regret. Then resignation. “But if I weren’t here at the saloon, I wouldn’t never have seen you in the first place, now, would I? So you wouldn’t have needed any rules about me to begin with.”

“No.” She sighed, then pulled an elaborately regretful face—a markedly pale one, probably on account of the pain. “Isn’t that the devil of it? It’s a conundrum, all right.” She panted. “You’re awfully clever to notice that. I do very much appreciate your kindness, all the same. I sincerely do.”

As Dylan nimbly got up—the whole endeavor having taken a few seconds at most but feeling like much longer—he glimpsed the cowboy’s crestfallen expression. It was evident that the man didn’t know how to begin arguing against the dance hall girl’s convoluted logic. She was being so all-fired sugary about it that he couldn’t very well object outright, either. She actually seemed...disappointed not to have those grubby hands on her.

Against his will, Dylan admired her gumption. Her fortitude in withstanding the discomfort of her injury. And her cleverness in making her turndown of the man both impersonal and final, too. Most likely, she’d had years—given her advancing age of probably twenty-eight or so—of disarming unwanted suitors. She’d learned to do so capably and kindly, without stirring up unnecessary rancor in the process.

Also without damaging her saloon-owning boss’s business, Dylan couldn’t help noting. Given a fair choice, no man would choose to forgo the whiskey and companionship available at a good saloon—not even in favor of wooing a woman. Doubtless, Jack Murphy would applaud that tactic—then ask her to teach that technique to the other dancers, besides. A few of them looked as though they needed more than a thimbleful of her good sense.

As he shouldered forward to help her stand, then to let her lean sideways on him, Dylan found himself appreciating her unexpected gentleness in letting down the cowboy almost as much as he admired her ingeniousness in doing so. But he’d rather be hog-tied and left wearing nothing but boots in a blizzard than admit it. First, because he wasn’t a man who went all mush-hearted over other people’s business. Second, because...well, where in tarnation was the damn appreciation she owed him?

He was the one who’d saved her from that blundering, overeager cowpuncher in the first place. He was the one who was holding her upright at that very moment! He deserved a smile at the very least—and a whole passel of thank-yous at the most.

Instead, the dance hall girl teetered in his arms. Setting his mouth in a straight line, Dylan half held, half hauled her to a marginally quieter spot away from the stage. There, she tried to put her weight on her right leg. She grimaced. Her face turned even ghostlier. With growing concern, Dylan steadied her.

“You’re hurt!” Predictably two steps behind the situation, the cowboy rubbernecked. He scrambled to rustle up a chair for her. Lickety-split, he shoved it under her caboose. “Here.”

Gratefully, she sank onto that support. Gamely, she beamed up at that troublemaking bootlicker of a cowpuncher, just as though he deserved her gratefulness for getting her injured.

She didn’t say a solitary word to Dylan, kind or otherwise. She only compressed her pretty lips, then frowned at her ankle while the saloon’s usual hurly-burly proceeded just beyond them.

“You’d do best to elevate that sore ankle,” Dylan advised gruffly, mindful of the need for quick action. He knelt at her skirts, then expertly delved his hands beneath their spangled hems to test what he suspected was grave damage to her ankle.

Before he could do more than graze her high-buttoned shoe and skim his fingers up to her stocking-clad ankle to gauge the swelling he expected to find there, the minx kicked him.

Instant pain exploded in his knee. “Ouch!”

Her eyes narrowed. “Next time, I’ll aim higher.”

Her gaze fixed menacingly in the vicinity of his gun belt. Ordinarily, Dylan didn’t wear it. Not anymore. But when traveling alone across multiple states and territories, he did.

As much as he didn’t like it, sometimes he needed...backing.

Feeling provoked, Dylan glared back. He nudged his chin at the cowboy. “How come he gets a spoonful of sugar from you, and I get a big dose of vinegar? I’m the one who helped you.”

“Near as I can tell, you’re the one who made me get dragged offstage in the middle of my performance.” With a worried frown, the dance hall girl glanced toward the stage, where her fellow dancers were currently high-kicking in the glow of the lights.

The show had to go on, Dylan guessed. That seemed fairly coldhearted to him, though. He’d thought his line of work was hard-nosed—and it was—but there was more to skirt tossing than he’d first realized, it seemed. There was more to her, too.

Contrariness, for instance. Also, plenty of obtuseness.

“I was protecting you!” Dylan objected. It was past time to set her straight. Maybe, he reasoned, the pain had made her light-headed. That would explain her poor grasp of the situation.

“No, you were picking on poor—” She broke off, glancing at the cowboy for his name. After what felt like enough time for Dylan to turn gray-haired and stooped, the befuddled cowpoke finally blurted it out. “—Rufus, here, when your intervention was entirely unnecessary. I had matters well in hand.”

“Near as I could tell, Rufus had matters well in hand.”

“A miscreant like you would concentrate on the disreputable side of things, wouldn’t you? That is a very rude comment.”

“Very rude,” Rufus put in, looking belligerent.

The dance hall girl put her hand on his mud-spackled wrist in a calming gesture. Unreasonably, Dylan resented her caring.

At the same time, grudgingly, he admired how well-spoken she was. How indomitable. How courageous. He knew good men who would not have dared to speak to him in the tone she’d used.

“I didn’t require your ‘help,’” she informed him further.

“She didn’t require your help,” said myna bird Rufus.

Dylan gave him a quelling look. Sensibly, the man cowered.

“What you require is treatment for that ankle.” He cast her gaudy skirts a concerned look. “If you’d just let me see—”

“Are you a doctor?”

“I promise you, I’m better qualified than whatever backwoods sawbones you’re going to find in Morrow Creek.”

“Then you’re not a doctor.” She eyed Rufus. “I’m terribly sorry to impose on you this way, Rufus, but would you mind very much fetching Doc Finney for me? Harry can tell you how.”

The cowboy hesitated. It was evident that he wanted to linger—that he was having second thoughts about her avowed “no saloongoers” courtship policy. Helping him along the path of a true believer, Dylan scowled at him. “Good idea,” he growled.

While the knuck was gone, he would settle things here. Starting by getting her out of the noisy saloon and into someplace more conducive to a proper medical evaluation.

He hadn’t spent years as a Pinkerton detective, then more years as a lumberman doing dangerous work in largely unmapped territory, then more years as a private security man for hire, without acquiring a necessary quantity of medical knowledge. In his time, he’d extracted bullets—sometimes from himself—set broken limbs, stitched up knife wounds and kept at least one man from bleeding to death in the middle of nowhere. To him, treating a turned ankle—no matter how serious—was a walkover.

Not that he meant to tell anyone that. He wasn’t a medical man, per se. He was just a man who didn’t like leaving loose ends. From the moment the dance hall girl had tumbled offstage, she’d temporarily become his responsibility to see to.

Noticing that Rufus hadn’t left yet, Dylan gave him another glare. Obediently, the cowpuncher scurried off, hat in hand.

The moment he’d gone, the dance hall girl aimed a self-assured look at Dylan. “See? Rufus is doing exactly as I asked him to. I had this situation perfectly under control all along—until you blundered in with your fisticuffs.”

She hadn’t had anything “under control.” Dylan knew damn well that Rufus had only done as she’d bade because he had intimidated the man into compliance with that final scowl. How that fact had escaped her notice was beyond him—although she was in obvious discomfort, so she probably wasn’t herself just then.

“I’ll thank you to leave me alone now,” she added.

Her imperious tone wrested a rueful grin from him.

He’d wager that was her true self, despite everything.

“All right. I’ll go.” Contrarily, Dylan pulled up an empty chair. He sat across from her, rested his forearms on his thighs, then gave a carefree nod. “Just as soon as you get up from that chair and get yourself back onstage.”

Chapter Two

Sucking in a deep, pain-filled breath, Marielle met the stranger’s gaze dead-on. He knew full well she couldn’t just get up off that chair and get back onstage. Not in the condition she was in. She’d tested her ankle. It hadn’t borne her weight.

Instead, it had made agony shoot clear up her leg and nearly overwhelm her. Reacting helplessly, she’d clutched the stranger’s muscular shoulder so hard that she knew by now he must be developing fingertip-size bruises beneath his fancy coat and collared shirt. He knew she couldn’t just gallivant onstage.

What’s more, he knew that she knew that he knew that.

People didn’t typically challenge Marielle. She’d been born charming her mama and papa and all the stagehands at the New York theater where they’d worked. She’d grown up knowing how to finagle her way...and, more important, how to make people want for her to get her way. It was a knack she had never questioned.

“Or,” the stranger went on in that selfsame blithe manner, his tone belying his handsome face full of concern, “you can come with me to the back of the house, let me fix up your ankle and maybe have a snort of applejack brandy for the pain, too.”

That sounded...tempting. But she refused to give in. She didn’t even know this man. He looked like a scoundrel to her.

A scoundrel was the very last thing she needed. Over the years, she’d turned down the assistance of several reputable men. Why would she abandon her practical path for a rake like him?

She managed an airy wave, trying not to betray that her ankle was throbbing. “I’ll wait for a proper doctor, thank you.”

“I’m better than a ‘proper’ doctor,” he assured her with a steady look, occupying his chair with assurance and vigor. He looked as though he could have whittled the dratted thing. Possibly with a huge bowie knife...which he kept strapped to his person like the bad man he was. “And you’re wasting time.”

“I don’t need your assistance, Mr.—”

“Coyle. Dylan Coyle.”

“—Coyle. I don’t even know you. Except to know that I find your air of nonchalance and entitlement completely irksome.” Earlier, privately, she’d found his steady and sure touch as he’d boldly examined her ankle downright...galvanizing. But she was certainly not going to inform him of that. She’d found the wherewithal to deliver him an aptly discouraging kick, and that had been that. Marielle Miller was no pushover. “I’d thank you to leave me alone. I’m injured. You are the cause of that. So—”

“That,” he said patiently, “is why I’m trying to help.”

“Aha.” She didn’t want to be small-minded. But she did want him to admit his obvious wrongness. Between being hurt and being upset with him, Marielle wasn’t her most clear-eyed and generous self. “Then you admit that you were at fault? Good. Thank you.”

His brown eyes flared. Arrestingly. “I said no such thing.”

“Humph.” Why on earth was she noticing his eyes at a time like this? Determinedly, Marielle went on. “Of course you did. Just now. And the fact remains that I had things under control—”

His interposing snort was infuriating. So was the way she couldn’t help noticing how finely honed his jawline was, how masculine his nose was, how intelligent his demeanor was.

Good-natured yokels, she was used to handling. A man like him? He was another beast entirely. She wasn’t sure she knew what to do about him. But she knew backing down wasn’t possible.

For her, it wasn’t even an option.

“—until you interfered and got me dragged offstage,” Marielle went on, deliberately transferring her gaze away from his eyes...only to notice how attractively his dark hair swept back from his face. An errant wave tumbled over his forehead, lending him a newly boyish look that she understood to be false.

Dylan Coyle was all man. Tall. Handsome. Not to be trusted.

“Your fall was an accident,” Coyle assured her, seemingly sincerely. His husky tone soothed her, despite everything. “I never meant for you to get caught up the way you did. I saw that cowboy manhandling you. I set out to put a stop to it. I did.”

“I wish you hadn’t.” Purposely, Marielle glanced away from their semisecluded corner. Rufus the cowboy was still nowhere in sight. She hoped he really had gone to fetch Doc Finney, the way she’d suggested. If not...well, she’d be stuck with her unwanted, self-appointed protector—at least until her younger brother, Hudson, turned up to assist her. He ought to be someplace inside Murphy’s saloon. They’d come there together. “As I said, I was handling it. Of the two of us, I have the most experience, expertise and aptitude at discouraging suitors.”

His grin flashed. “I wouldn’t be too sure about that.”

She flicked her gaze over his broad-shouldered form, neat clothes and open, self-assured posture. Most likely, women did pursue him. Not that such brazen behavior mattered to her. Marielle inhaled. “Aside from which, I have my own protectors—”

At that, Coyle had the audacity to scoff. He emanated certainty, strength and outright authority the way some men—like poor, misguided Rufus—exuded confusion and bodily odors.

“—who can come to my aid,” she went on, wincing as a fresh wave of ankle pain struck her, “so I certainly don’t need—”

“You’re hurting,” Coyle interrupted, suddenly out of forbearance for their conversation. As she opened her mouth to protest, he shook his head. “Don’t try to deny it. Just let me take a look. Please. I’ll wrap it up for stability, then...”

As he went on describing a potential treatment for her injury, he sounded startlingly knowledgeable. More surprisingly, he sounded caring. Despite his rough tone and imperious manner, Dylan Coyle appeared to be both bright and kind. Darn him.

All the same, Marielle didn’t want him probing under her skirts again. No good could come of that. Even if, in that single shocking moment, she’d been tempted to let him continue.

Purely for the sake of good medicine. Of course.

“I’ve been hurt before.” Not like this, though, she knew. Something in her ankle had snapped. She’d felt it give way beneath her. That was part of the reason she was so infuriated with him. Thanks to him, she was in a verifiable pickle.

If she couldn’t dance, she couldn’t earn a living.

Still, Marielle didn’t want Dylan Coyle’s help—or anyone else’s. Except Doc Finney’s. Even his, only reluctantly.

She knew better than to become reliant on other people. Growing up backstage, she’d seen how frequently people came and went, leaving her behind with typical bonhomie. Taking care of herself was nobody’s business but her own. Mustering another airy wave, she assured him, “I’m stronger than I look. I know what I’m talking about—dancers get injured fairly often.”

Coyle gave her an evaluative look—one she fancied included him enjoying her appearance in the same way that she’d mooned over his a few seconds ago. Why was she so addlepated, anyway?

Doubtless, she reasoned, her nonsensicalness owed itself to the pain. All the same, it would be only fair if Coyle dished out a compliment for her bravery. Or offered up some praise for her dancing. Or composed a sonnet to her “cerulean blue” eyes, the way a ranch hand from Everett Bannon’s place had done last year, with the probable help of a thesaurus and memorable—if doomed—romanticism. If not for Hudson needing her, in fact, Marielle might have given in to that ranch hand. Eventually.

Her unshared secret was that she adored all things dreamy and sentimental. Maybe because she didn’t expect to enjoy them for herself. Not for years and years yet.

“Hurt fairly often, eh? Hmm.” He rubbed his stubbled jaw, examining her carefully. “Especially at your age, I’d imagine.”

“What?”

“You’re getting on, that’s all,” Coyle clarified in a blasé tone. “After all, you must be...what, thirty-three or so?”

“Thirty-three?” Marielle gawked at him. He’d aged her by three years in an instant! A moment ago, she’d been feeling woozy with pain. But now her clarity was fully restored. “I’ll thank you, Mr. Coyle, not to comment on my age. Or anything else about me! I am not interested in your opinions. What I am interested in is having your apology and maybe some recompense for this disastrous incident. Because this is all your fault—”

“I’m sorry. I’ve gone and made you angry.”

“Indeed, you have!” Of course he had. Thirty-three?

“I didn’t mean to disregard your experience.” Coyle gave her a keen look. His eyes sparkled. “Your vast experience.”

That was more like it. Proudly, Marielle lifted her chin. “For your information, I am not thirty-three years old.”

“Ah.” He roamed his gaze over her again with nearly the same perceptiveness he’d employed while she’d been onstage. He rubbed his whisker-stubbled jaw. He nodded. “You’re thirty-five. I have to say, ma’am, that while you are a very fine specimen of womanhood, it’s no wonder your feeble ankle snapped so readily.”

Speechless, Marielle stared at him. Had he said...feeble?

He actually grinned, looking pleased. Intolerably so.

“I am not feeble,” she informed him. “You are deluded.”

“I’ve never seen a dance hall girl with so much...maturity,” Coyle opined. “No wonder you’re the one pictured on the fancy painted sign in front of the saloon.” He gave her a look full of wonderment. “You make those other girls look like novices.”

Confused, Marielle squinted at him. He sounded pleasant, but... “That’s hardly complimentary—to me or my fellow dancers.”

Not clarifying, he studied her...probably looking for the old crone’s wrinkles he expected to find. Of all the audacious—

“You’re older than me,” she shot back. “By a year or more.”

Coyle raised his brows. “You think I’m forty?”

She earnestly considered kicking him again. Harder than before. It wouldn’t be polite, but he did deserve it.

Before she could do so, he laughed. That act transformed his whole being. It turned him from a very attractive man to a downright fascinating one. Drat. How did he keep doing that?

He was enjoying himself so much, Marielle almost wanted to join in the frivolity. Instead, she gave him a peevish look.

“I’m thirty-two, Miss Miller, plus a month or six.”

Hearing her name on his lips, Marielle frowned. “How do you know my name? We haven’t met. If you expect me to believe—”

“That I divined it? If you must. Be my guest.”

His teasing didn’t deter her. “The sign. My name is on it.”

She’d negotiated strictly for that with Jack Murphy.

“Right alongside your likeness,” Coyle confirmed. He tilted his head to observe her. “Paint doesn’t do you justice, though.”

“Hmmph. It didn’t lead you to expect geriatric dancing?”

“It didn’t lead me to expect to be helping a stubborn dance hall girl quit thinking about her injury. But that’s working out all right.” He nodded toward her ankle. “I bet it doesn’t hurt as much now, does it? Outrage cures everything.”

Marielle was startled to realize it did. It had. At least momentarily. Her expression of relief clearly revealed as much.

Charitably, Coyle let his small victory go unremarked upon.

“I’ve already apologized,” he said instead. “I’m very sorry you got hurt. But as far as reparation for your injury goes, I doubt that your cowboy has the means to pay for the damage he’s done here tonight. So if I were you—”

“I meant you should pay, you cretin! Thanks to you, I won’t be able to dance for days, if not weeks.” Judging by the growing throbbing in her ankle, her injury was indeed serious. She doubted she would be able to remove her dancing shoes when she got home tonight. They would have to be cut off. Then replaced. That would cost money. So would food. Housing. Fuel for her stove. Tallying her expenses, Marielle grew ever more alarmed at her predicament. “The way I see it,” she said, “you owe me.”

For the first time, Coyle seemed taken aback.

Could he...did he truly believe he’d been helping her? As far as she could tell, he’d been spoiling for a scuffle. Men often were when imbibing. She had unfortunately provided an impetus.

Now here they were, deadlocked on what to do next.

“I don’t owe anyone anything,” Coyle disagreed darkly. “That’s the way I like it. That’s the way I intend to keep it. I’m going to fix your ankle. Then I’m leaving Morrow Creek.”

Leaving. That confirmed all her misgivings about him. It was too bad, really, Marielle thought. She almost liked him.

It wouldn’t pay to let him know that. Quite literally.

“I am not interested in your travel plans, Mr. Coyle.” With a purposely regretful look, Marielle glanced from their position in the very back of the saloon to the crowded saloon floor itself. There was a ruckus near the front doors as several men entered. She’d need to make this quick, in case Doc Finney was arriving and this was her last chance to be heard. “I’d hoped that further...encouragement...wouldn’t be necessary for you to do right by me in my predicament. But now that I see it is...”

Meaningfully, she let her threatening statement linger.

“You expect your neighbors to force me to pay? Is that it?” Coyle gave a knowing headshake. “I see you looking to them for help, but I promise you, I know most of these men. They know me. They won’t go against me. Not even at your insistence.”

Undoubtedly, he’d scared them into that stance, Marielle guessed. Above all else, Dylan Coyle was intimidating.

“You don’t know my brother, Mr. Hudson Miller. I’m afraid he’ll be very unhappy to hear that you won’t help me.”

Doing her utmost to appear apprehensive over what Hudson might do to assuage his unhappiness, Marielle bit her lip.

Thankfully, Coyle appeared to swallow her pretense.

“Are you suggesting your brother will force me to pay you for your lost work time?” he asked. “Because if you are—”

“Hudson is awfully large. And strong. And very mean.”

Uttering that last outright fib, Marielle all but expected to be struck by lightning. If Hudson ventured closer, her threat would fall apart like crepe paper on a rainy day. Because while Hudson was indeed big and burly, he was anything but malicious.

That’s why Marielle had dedicated herself to caring for him, all by herself, from before they’d arrived in Morrow Creek. Hudson needed her. He was a sweet, softhearted soul who had a sense of fun where his ambition ought to have been. Hudson would have been lost without her. She’d supported them both for years. She didn’t aim to quit now. She’d made promises to that effect.

“Is Hudson ‘mean’ enough to make you agree to have your ankle treated?” Coyle inquired. “Because if he is, bring him over and let him supervise while I tend to it the way I tried to before. That injury is only getting worse the more you dally.”

She couldn’t do that. Hudson was approximately as menacing as a gamboling puppy. He was probably inebriated, what’s more. That was the cost of having her brother at Murphy’s saloon to watch over her. He drank. He gambled, smoked and caroused, too. But he didn’t exactly terrorize bystanders, even with his size and his strength. He would greet Coyle like a long-lost friend.

Caught, Marielle swallowed hard. She looked away.

“I told you, I don’t need anybody’s help!”

She never had. She refused to now. Period. But her outburst was as good as an admission of defeat. Her erstwhile “protector” didn’t let it pass unnoticed, either. His expression hardened.

“You are confusing obduracy with strength,” Coyle told her in an unyielding tone. “Everybody needs help sometimes.”

Exasperated and hurting, Marielle glowered at him. “I also don’t need some drifter with a ten-dollar vocabulary and a gun belt telling me what to do and how to do it. If you’re too skint to make good on the trouble you’ve caused, just own up to it.”

“This isn’t about money, and you know it.” His gaze wandered to her face. Held. “It’s about getting what’s coming to you. Having the ledger squared. We’re the same in that way. Trouble is, we’re going about it from opposite directions.”

The same. Could they be? All Marielle knew was that at those words, the raucous saloon fell away, pushed like daytime before night. She frowned at Coyle, struck by his perspicacity.

She did want fairness to prevail. She didn’t want to be disadvantaged. If he was speaking truthfully, he felt the same way. No one had ever truly understood her. Yet here he was...

...Trying to manipulate her into granting him his wishes. Which she didn’t need to do. Doc Finney would deal with her ankle, very soon now. Letting a stranger tend to it—especially now—felt like surrendering. Marielle refused to be cowed.

For Hudson’s sake and her own, she’d always been strong.

“We’re not alike,” she objected in no uncertain terms, vexed at his nerve. “You’re nothing but a drifter, and I’m—”

“Allergic to a man with a wandering foot?” Coyle guessed. His eyes sparkled again, making him seem absolutely unlike someone who would start a saloon brawl with a cowboy. “You say drifter as if it’s poisonous. I like traveling man better. It sounds jaunty. Nobody can object to that.”

“Whatever you call it, it means leaving someone behind.”

His smile dimmed. Thankfully for her. Because seeing its brilliance had made Marielle feel...captivated. Also, disinclined to press the issue of her fair compensation for lost work with him. But she was the one who charmed people into forgetting themselves and their goals. Not him. It couldn’t be him.

“Not putting down roots isn’t a crime. It’s freedom.”

“It’s selfishness,” she disagreed. “And it’s cruel.”

“Cruel? Look here, Miss Miller, this is getting a mite too personal for my taste. Whatever somebody did to you, you can’t pin it on me. Like you said, we’ve never met before tonight.”

“And yet you claim to know me so well.”

“I—” On the verge of disagreeing, Coyle stopped. He squinted at her with far more astuteness than she liked. “I am letting myself be diverted by you, just like you were by me.” He seemed oddly impressed. “You don’t want me to look at your ankle again, so you’re concocting a cockamamie theory to dissuade me.”

She had been. But she’d gotten carried away with her own hyperbole. A flair for the dramatic did run in her family, but Marielle saw life lightly—much more lightly than she’d let on just now. Coyle didn’t know that about her, though. “Aha.” She nodded. “There’s another one of those pricy words of yours.”

“You understand them all, and you know it,” Coyle told her. “You’re a dancing girl on the outside, but you’re a damn poet on the inside. That’s why you keep watch up there onstage.”

“I ‘keep watch’ because men like you start fights!”

“You keep watch because you want more. Why wouldn’t you?” He aimed another knowing look at her. “You can’t very well let it sneak on by when you’re not on the lookout. So you watch.”

He was right. Of course he was. Because after all, the other dance hall girls were grown women who could take care of themselves without her. Even Etta. But she refused to say so.

Marielle wasn’t even sure what more she wanted. Only that it felt hazy and essential...and eternally out of her grasp.

For a heartbeat, they only looked at one another—two people pulled together in a boisterous, plain-hewn saloon in a faraway, lonesome territory. Two people who were surprisingly the same.

Marielle liked that even less than her ankle injury.

“You want a husband and a passel of babies,” Coyle went on, “which would be only fitting and natural for an older woman.”

Argh. He was, quite possibly, the worst know-it-all she had ever encountered. Why had she even entertained the notion that he understood her? Commiserated with her? Needed...like her?

He was a blowhard and a tyrant, born to boss people around and take charge. She was through inveigling him. She would find another way to support herself until her injury healed.

But Coyle wasn’t done deciding her future for her yet. Musingly, he studied the saloon. “I reckon there are several men here who’d suit you. You look like the settling down type. You should pick one of them, retire from dancing and start having babies.”

That sounded like heaven. Except coming from him.

Marielle cast him a scathing look, only to see him grin unrepentantly in response. He was enjoying baiting her.

“Oh, why won’t you just go away?” she grumped.

“Because you’re a woman who won’t admit she’s wrong, and I’m a man who won’t leave his responsibilities behind him.” Coyle stood. He held out his arms as though entertaining every expectation she’d jump into them. “Come to the back room. I’ll look at your ankle in private. We’ll see what can be done.”

Marielle was hurt. She was tired. She was confused and worried and unsure how far her nest egg of savings would go.

Given all that, she wanted to concede—to give up trying to make him settle with her and just let him tend to her ankle the way he wanted to. On the verge of doing so, though, she spied more movement from the saloon’s floor. Doc Finney was headed her way, having evidently spoken with a few of the men around him to discern her location. He was accompanied by Jack Murphy, Daniel McCabe, Owen Cooper and several other leaders of the town.

Wearing a frown on his lined and weary face, Morrow Creek’s longtime physician scanned the crowd. He spied Marielle. He walked faster, carrying his hat and physician’s bag.

Finally. She was about to be well quit of Dylan Coyle.

Alertly, Marielle sat straighter in her chair. She thought she could make it to the saloon’s back room, if she had a little help. Since several of the town’s burliest men had accompanied Doc Finney to the saloon, she could ask someone she knew to help her. Then she could see the back of Mr. Coyle. For good.

Unexpectedly, the notion made her feel...almost wistful.

Her melancholy didn’t last long, though. Because to Marielle’s surprise, even as she prepared to make that arduous journey to the saloon’s back room, Doc Finney did not rush to her side. He did not open his physician’s bag, extract a miracle cure and fix her. He didn’t even try to do those things.

Instead, he spied Dylan Coyle—who stood with his back to the room and thus couldn’t see Doc Finney approaching—and hurried nearer. He raised his arm. “Coyle! There you are!”

Coyle turned. “Doc!” His jovial greeting extended to the other men. “McCabe. Cooper.” They all shook hands. Heartily. The others—men Marielle had known for years now—gazed at the drifter through respectful eyes. “Murphy, you owe me a new hat,” Coyle teased. “One that’s not soaked clean through with whiskey.”

“The hell I do!” Marielle’s boss returned. “When you drink in my place, you can’t expect to come out looking like a dandy.”

They went on joshing with one another, trading back slaps and jokes. Taken aback by their good-humored meeting, Marielle frowned. She adjusted her feathered headpiece, then pointedly smoothed her skirts. Any second now, they would come to their senses and properly tend to her injury. Surely they would.

She cleared her throat, attempting to make sure of that.

“We thought we might miss you, Coyle,” Daniel McCabe, the town blacksmith, was saying. “I’m glad to see we didn’t.”

Cooper agreed. “You were supposed to come to the Morrow Creek Men’s Club meeting. We needed you there. There’s been a certifiable emergency in town.” The livery stable owner eyed his friends. “I told you we should’ve hog-tied him and brought him.”

They all guffawed. A few more men drifted nearer, drawn by their boisterous conversation. Marielle sat alone, all but hidden behind hotelier Griffin Turner, detective Adam Corwin and lumber mill owner Marcus Copeland, each of whom took their turns greeting Dylan Coyle. At the center of their attention, Coyle ably held his own with handshakes and rough-edged banter.

For a self-professed wandering man, Marielle couldn’t help noticing grumpily from the shadows, Coyle had certainly managed to forge some strong connections in Morrow Creek. Her friends and neighbors seemed to hold him in very high regard.

“Excuse me!” she called. “Doctor Finney? A word, please?”

The town’s curmudgeonly physician didn’t hear her.

Frustrated, Marielle tried again. More loudly.

The only person who heard her was Hudson. He broke through the ring of men surrounding Mr. Coyle, all of them chattering away, then spied Marielle on her chair. Her brother shouted.

“Mari!” Almost six and a half feet tall, possessed of a powerful build and a headful of shoulder-length dark brown hair that matched his coffee-colored eyes, Hudson lumbered forward. He was neither graceful nor formidable, but he was beloved by Marielle. At the sight of her brother, she sagged with relief.

“I heard you were hurt!” He knelt at her chair, looking her over for what he plainly expected to be calamitous bumps and bruises. He grasped her hand. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here sooner. I, uh, stepped outside for a while. The next thing I knew, some cowboy was rushing by, shouting for Doc Finney like a darn fool.” Hudson scoffed, sending ale fumes wafting toward her. He smelled of cheroot smoke, too. “Everybody knows Doc was at the men’s club meeting, but I guess that broke up. Anyway, I—”

“Can you get me out of here, please?”

Hudson balked. “You aren’t done dancing already, are you?”

His disappointment was palpable...and understandable, too. He didn’t want to cut short his evening of fun. While she was dancing onstage, Hudson always promised to linger nearby for her “protection.” In actuality, her brother spent most of his time drinking and carousing. Sometimes gambling. Marielle knew he meant well. After all, if not for her profession, he would not have been exposed to so many objectionable influences at all.

Hudson’s potential ruination was partly her fault.

“I’m afraid,” she admitted, “that I’m done dancing for quite a while.” She didn’t want to worry him by saying how long.

New concern shadowed his face. “You’re hurt bad? Where?”

“My ankle.” Ruefully, Marielle glanced in its direction. That traitorous “feeble” appendage might take weeks to heal. “If you could please just ask Doc Finney to meet us at home—”

“Of course! Of course I will.” Her brother squeezed her hand. “Anything you need, Mari. You know you can count on me.”

“She’d better be able to.” Jack Murphy separated himself from the crowd. Judging by his solemn expression, he’d been informed of Marielle’s situation—and had heard her own gloomy pronouncement of her prognosis, too. He pushed a glass in her hand. “Drink this. I’ll send the doctor to you straightaway.”

“This is a double whiskey!” Marielle objected.

“It’ll help. Trust me.” Jack turned to Hudson, even as the Dylan-Coyle-centered melee went on behind him. “She’ll do better at home, where it’s quiet. Make sure she gets some rest.”

Irked, Marielle cleared her throat. “I’m right here!”

“I’ll listen to you,” Jack informed her with a devilish gleam in his Irish eyes, “after you down that medicinal snort.”

Expeditiously, she did. It burned all the way down. Ugh.

Eyes watering, Marielle persisted. “I already told Hudson to take me home, Jack. You needn’t interfere. I have this well in hand.” A surprising warmth spread through her, kindled by the liquor she’d consumed. “I’ll be back within days. Don’t worry.”

Hudson took away her glass. He nodded at her. “Ready?”

Marielle murmured her assent. She held out her hand, ready for her brother to help her to her feet in a dignified fashion.

Instead, he saved time by scooping her outright into his massive arms, then cradling her to his chest. Marielle couldn’t help whooping in surprise, then clutching him. She gave him a swat, feeling relieved and displeased in equal measure. She loved Hudson. She knew he’d care for her, however inexpertly. But she didn’t like being treated like a helpless child.

“Days,” she promised Jack sternly, desperate to make sure he wouldn’t hire someone to replace her. “I heal quickly.”

“You’ll take as long as you need,” her boss countered.

But Marielle knew she couldn’t do that. “I can’t afford to stay home languishing! You know that. Without a steady income—”

But Jack Murphy had an answer for that, too.

“I’ll give you half pay, for as long as you’re laid up—”

“What?” She was astounded. His offer went above and beyond what any dancer could expect. “That’s so generous of you.”

“—as long as you rest up and follow orders.”

Humph. Marielle wrinkled her nose. Naturally, there were conditions attached to Jack’s munificence. It was almost as if they all expected her to flout doctor’s orders, charge ahead on her own authority and handle this situation however she liked.

It was almost as if they all knew her, Jack included.

Dratted know-it-alls. No adult man would have had to agree to “follow orders” under threat of penury. Why should she?

She could take care of herself and darn well would.

“Making a cranky face,” Jack observed, “is not agreeing.”

“Don’t you think I know that?” Marielle asked.

Hudson chuckled. She felt the vibration of his laughter.

“That’s why I’m pressing the issue,” Jack said. “We’ve known each other for years now, remember? My saloon was just a wee upstart when I brought you and your troupe to Morrow Creek.”

Marielle remembered. Daniel McCabe had built the stage she danced on with his own two blacksmithing hands. Catching a glimpse of Jack’s expectant expression, she knew what he wanted.

She wasn’t ready to give him her agreement, though.

“You all think you’re so clever, don’t you?” she groused.

“I don’t.” Holding her in his arms, Hudson shrugged. He gave her an endearing grin. “But I agree with Jack about this.”

“Traitor.” Stubbornly, Marielle frowned at them both. But a second later, her head began swimming with the aftereffects of the whiskey. It was the only explanation for what happened next. “Fine,” she agreed. “I’ll behave myself! I promise. All right?”

“All right.” Jack nodded. So did Hudson.

Then he swept her out of the saloon and into the night.

Chapter Three

At some point, Dylan realized that Doc Finney had left the cluster of men surrounding him. Until that moment, he’d been keeping a firm eye on the reedy physician. It was imperative to get the doctor’s treatment for the dance hall girl. But between one joke and the next—between one urgent statement about the dire emergency facing the town and the next—Dylan lost him.

He hadn’t expected to be swamped by Morrow Creek’s take-charge menfolk, all of them eager to get his attention—and his opinion on the crisis they’d discussed at the men’s club that evening. Truthfully, when Dylan had spied the group of men coming into Murphy’s saloon, he’d thought they were there for Marielle Miller. Especially the doctor. It had certainly looked that way. As one, they’d turned their heads toward the dance hall girl’s position, perked up, then beelined straight there.

It turned out, though, that they’d beelined toward him.

Since that turn of events, Dylan had been unable to avoid all the backslapping, camaraderie, jokes and gossip they’d surrounded him with. He hadn’t invited it. But he also hadn’t been idly jawing to Miss Miller earlier. He did know these men. They knew him. During his short stay in Morrow Creek, he’d taken part in some important goings-on, mostly involving his employer at the Morrow Creek Mutual Society, the conniving brute who’d followed her West and the thugs that reprobate had employed.

In the aftermath of that incident, Dylan and the other men—Murphy, Copeland, McCabe, Corwin and several more, along with his fellow security men Seth Durant and Judah Foster—had assembled a posse and seen that justice was done. Rightly so.

But if they now believed that his onetime participation in a single necessary manhunt meant he wanted to join their damn men’s club and spend his days being gradually nailed down to one place, fenced in by friendship and obligation and belonging...

Well, they needed to think again.

“...Caffey is still on the loose. The bastard got away,” Miles Callaway was telling everyone, explaining the emergency that faced them to those listening saloongoers who, like Dylan, hadn’t been at the meeting that night. The dance hall girls had taken their usual midevening break to change costumes. The saloon had quieted somewhat, even as the faro games and drinking continued. “Deputy Winston wasn’t so lucky,” Callaway went on. “The federal marshals already took him off to Yuma Prison.”

“He deserves it. Caffey deserves worse.” Clayton Davis, the lumberman who said so, made a grim face. There was no love lost between him and the deputy—or the sheriff, for that matter.

As near as Dylan could gather, Caffey had absconded a few days ago under mysterious circumstances. The townspeople were still trying to understand what could have made their longtime sheriff leave his badge and his post. He’d skedaddled just steps ahead of the marshals who’d closed in on his hapless deputy.

None of them, though, would miss Caffey. They were right not to, Dylan knew. The lawman had abused his authority, plain and simple. More than a few of the good men present had themselves been unjustly detained by Caffey at one time or another, under one fabrication or other. Even one woman had spent copious time in the jailhouse for her rabble-rousing and protesting: Grace Murphy, the saloonkeeper’s suffragist wife.

All of which explained Jack Murphy’s particular zeal to attend the men’s club meeting and have the sheriff’s wrongdoings dealt with—whatever they were. In Murphy’s position, Dylan would have done the same thing. Not that he could glimpse Murphy at the moment. He seemed to have disappeared along with Doc Finney.

Maybe they were both tending to the dance hall girl?

Wanting to make sure, Dylan looked for them.

“I don’t expect much integrity from folks, generally speaking,” Cade Foster was saying as Dylan searched. As a renowned gambler, Cade undoubtedly had his reasons for expecting the worst of people. “But a lawman ought to be different.”

“Our lawmen were different,” Adam Corwin said. “Crooked.”

Dylan could have told them that. In fact, he had told Miles Callaway and his enterprising fiancée, Rosamond McGrath Dancy—the proprietress of the Morrow Creek Mutual Society and his most recent employer—that more than once. In no uncertain terms.

Until this latest incident, though, no one had been too riled up. When it came to Caffey, they’d been content to look the other way. Sometimes, in small towns, convention trumped sense. Tradition beat intelligence. Good intentions were no match for longtime connections and established ways of doing things.

As far as Dylan was concerned, those were fair arguments for not getting caught up in a close-knit community like Morrow Creek. The people here were too all-fired busy being cozy to use their heads. They hadn’t wanted to see the problem at all.

Now it was too late. By Dylan’s reckoning, Sheriff Caffey had never earned his job in the first place. There was evidence he’d fixed his election, wrangled himself an undeserved position of authority and gloated for years about doing both of those things. He’d also forcibly impeded the press—including local Pioneer Press newspaperman Thomas Walsh—from reporting on his misconduct. And that had been nothing more than his way of getting the job.

Dylan hadn’t poked his nose too far into what Caffey had done after securing his position, but the man’s penchant for brute force, coercion and dishonesty were known. Widely, now.

“We can’t go on much longer without a sheriff.” Jedediah Hofer, the mercantile owner, jutted his chin. “Already, bad men are coming into town. Damnable drifters and the like—”

Dylan objected. “I take offense to that, Hofer,” he said with a smile. “Not every traveling man is up to no good.”

“Not every traveling man is capable of organizing a posse, taking out Arvid Bouchard’s lackeys and handling protection for a place like the mutual society.” Griffin Turner gave Dylan a nod of recognition. Coming from the infamous “Boston Beast,” that was high praise, indeed. “People around here don’t know what a man like Bouchard is capable of, but I reckon you did.”

“You brought him in anyway,” Marcus Copeland reminded everyone present. As the man who’d built one of Morrow Creek’s first businesses—his successful lumber mill—Marcus was respected in town. So everyone quit nattering to listen. “You took care of it. No hesitation. That’s why you’re the only man for this job.”

Dylan didn’t like where this was going. He was the only man for what job? Tracking down the sheriff? The lawman’s disappearance was none of his business. He was leaving. He should have already been gone. Just then, he wished he was.

Marcus’s father-in-law, Adam Crabtree, nodded. “I’m not sure anybody else could cope with the no-good criminal types flooding into town right now.” He held his hat in his hand, but stood bravely. “If the women find out what we’re facing—”

“They’re not going to find out.” Rancher Everett Bannon said so with evident authority and resolve. “Not ever.”

All the men murmured agreement. They were united in wanting to protect their womenfolk. Dylan couldn’t fault them for that.

He’d accidently caused a bit of misfortune tonight for one solitary dance hall girl and had himself become obsessed with protecting her and helping her—to the point of becoming enchanted by her obstinacy and overall sense of independence...not to mention her lithesome figure and pretty, expressive features.

He couldn’t stop wondering what she’d look like when she smiled. When she laughed. When she sighed after kissing a man.

Marielle Miller was beautiful, all right. But she was a handful and then some. She didn’t like him much, either. She would sure as hell not be kissing him anytime soon.

“We already had enough on our plates, what with them no-account Sheridan brothers taking up in our town,” complained Ned Nickerson, owner of the local book agent and news bureau. He cast a tardily cautious glance around the saloon, then prudently lowered his voice. “We’ve already got Charley, Peter and Levi. We don’t need to invite every damn criminal in the territory to come here!”

The Sheridans. Dylan had a requisite familiarity with that family of felonious troublemakers. He knew they were bold. They were crafty. They acted immortal—like many men who were too young to know better—and were all the more dangerous because of it. They were best avoided by anyone sane, man or woman, who didn’t want to wind up gut shot and left for dead.

He didn’t know why Caffey hadn’t sent that gang packing a long time ago. Instead, he’d tolerated their petty thievery and frequent fighting to the point of seeming to encourage it.

Which, Dylan mused, he might well have. What better way to ensure his lasting employment than to keep a homegrown gang of reprobates close by? Since their arrival, the Sheridans had kept some in town running scared. Now the situation had worsened.

“Sheriff Caffey picked a hell of a time to skedaddle, that’s for sure,” Adam Corwin agreed, pacing like the restless former detective he was. He squinted toward the saloon doors. “The weather is good. The passes are clear. There’s nothing to stop more bad elements from coming here to Morrow Creek.”

As pressing as that issue was, Dylan didn’t see where this inbound lawlessness concerned him. He wasn’t a peacekeeper. He was just a gun for hire—a man with an experienced mind who’d finished one job and was headed to the next. He’d already picked up an assignment in Sacramento. All he owned sat in the satchel he’d left behind the bar with Harry. All he’d pocketed before leaving it was enough cash to assure he had money to leave town with. That was all Dylan really needed—enough to move on.

His limited funds were the reason he hadn’t agreed to pay Marielle Miller for her lost work time right from the get-go. If he’d had the greenbacks to spare, he’d have given them to her—even if he didn’t feel strictly responsible for her predicament. That would have been the right thing to do. As it was, Dylan had not even considered surrendering his moving-on money.

He was pleased that he’d distracted her from the pain of her ankle injury, though—no matter how many stretchers he’d had to tell in the process. Truly. No thinking man would have taken Marielle Miller for a thirty-three-year-old woman, much less a dancer on the near side of forty. When he’d said that, she’d practically shot sparks from her eyeballs. It had been all he could do to keep a straight face and keep on riling her up.

Reminded of the dance hall girl—and beset with an entirely unlikely sense of fondness toward her, too—Dylan took a step to the side, intent on shouldering past the other men to Marielle’s position. He was worried about her. Although his conversation with the menfolk had taken only moments, he hadn’t wanted to abandon her. She ought to be right where he’d left her...

As he made his way, the conversation continued.

“You took down the Bedell gang just last year, Corwin,” Daniel McCabe was saying, standing head and shoulders over most. “Near as I can see, you could do the same to the Sheridans. Hell, you could put up a posse and get Sheriff Caffey, too.”

Amid general murmurs of agreement, Jack Murphy raised his arms, signaling for quiet. The group of men obliged.

“We’ve already settled this, remember?” the saloonkeeper reminded them. “We’ve already chosen our new sheriff.”

Adam Corwin nodded. “We have.” Evidently, that’s what the men’s club meeting had been for. “Besides, you all know Savannah’s expecting.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry, boys, but if I up and took a job as sheriff now, she’d have my damn head.”

“Or I would,” rumbled Mose Hawthorne, Savannah’s longtime loyal helper at the adjunct telegraph station outside town. “Ain’t no way you’re deserting Savannah now. Not when we’ve got Coyle here. The man’s practically tailor-made for the job.”

Hearing his name, Dylan went still. Again... “What job?”

At the expectant, confident looks that met his question, he balked. This didn’t feel right. This...hopefulness wasn’t for him.

“What job?” he repeated, wary and tense jawed.

“Why, the job of sheriff, of course.” Thomas Walsh moved nearer, a pad of paper and pencil at the ready. As usual, the editor of the Pioneer Press wanted his story. This time, from Dylan. “Typically, the sheriff’s position is filled following an election, but with all these degenerate types coming to town—”

“Drifters?” Dylan felt compelled to ask. “Like me?”

But unlike Marielle, no one seemed to believe he’d earned that moniker. A few men chuckled. More shook their heads. All gazed at him with that same damn unearned faith and expectancy.

What the hell had he done to earn this? Only his job.

“—we don’t have time for bureaucratic paperwork shuffling,” the editor continued. “We just need to get on with it.”

“Uh-oh. If Walsh don’t want paper shuffling,” Hofer said with a laugh, “this situation is right next door to doomed.”

Everyone laughed. But the newspaperman merely continued in his usual earnest fashion. “We’ll have a proper election,” he assured Dylan. “But while you’re serving, instead of before. During your first term, rather than wasting time with campaigns and signs and speeches. It’s more efficient that way. You can get started straightaway protecting everyone in Morrow Creek.”

They all beamed at him, but Dylan balked anew.

Protecting...everyone? That sounded like a nightmare to him.

Resolutely, he squared his shoulders. He sobered his expression. He held up his arms. An instant hush fell.

Damnation, he couldn’t help thinking. They were serious.

They truly expected leadership from him. Safety.

The realization was worrying. And all the more reason he had to put a stop to this before it went any further.

“Far be it from me to deny Walsh, here, the joy of organizing an emergency election,” Dylan tried with a grin. “Not to mention the whole caboodle of newspaper coverage that’ll go along with it. But it’ll have to happen without me.”

They didn’t seem to understand. “We already voted,” Clayton said. “At the men’s club meeting. You’re the man for the job.”

Everyone agreed—even as, at the other end of the saloon, the piano player tinkled a few keys. It felt as though ages had passed, but it must have been only a few minutes. The dance hall girls didn’t typically take a long break. They couldn’t risk losing customers who would drift away during a lengthy interval.

Speaking of dance hall girls...where was Marielle Miller? As the queen of obstinacy, she should have refused to budge from her chair until Doc Finney properly saw to her injury.

Funny thing was, Dylan couldn’t help musing, in her shoes, he would have refused help, too. They were alike in that way.

They were alike in several ways, when it came to it. But he couldn’t think about that now—not with a whole saloon full of people expecting him to ride to the rescue as their new sheriff.

“I already have a job,” Dylan protested more strongly. “In Sacramento.” He took out his pocket watch and glanced at it. “In fact, I can probably make the next train west if I leave now.”

Remarkably, everyone laughed. Some men raised their ales and whiskies in apparent toasts to what they assumed was Dylan’s customary joshing. Growing concerned, he glanced at the door.

He had an awful feeling he wouldn’t be catching that train.

“I guess you should’a gone to the meeting, eh?” Nickerson yelled, rubicund and jolly even before receiving his first pint of ale. “So you could cast the only vote against yourself.”

Everyone roared with glee. But Dylan started pacing.

Thomas Walsh noticed. “It’s just the usual sheriff’s job, Mr. Coyle, nothing more,” he promised Dylan. “Peacekeeping, serving summons, collecting tax money, investigating crimes—”

“I’m not the man you’re after,” Dylan said more plainly.

“You are exactly the man we’re after,” Miles Callaway maintained. He aimed his chin at the friends he’d made since coming to Morrow Creek from Boston. “Or do you have such little faith in our judgment that you’d disagree with all of us?”

Each of their gazes veered to his face. Held. Stubbornly.

Glancing beyond the men for a respite from this wrinkle in his getaway plans—from this entirely unwanted obligation—Dylan glimpsed movement near the saloon’s door. A huge man lumbered toward it with a woman in his arms—a woman who was pointedly directing him exactly where and in what fashion to carry her.

Marielle Miller. She was hearty enough to dispense orders. That meant she would be all right. In her wake, Jack Murphy watched contentedly as his lead dancing girl left in the man’s keeping.

Evidently, Dylan’s responsibilities to her had ended.

He was free to leave. Free to drift to the next town, the next job...the next person who would disappoint him in the end.

“What’s it going to be?” Copeland pressed. “Sheriff?”

Sheriff. Not liking the sound of that, Dylan frowned.

But everyone else shifted and murmured, plainly het up. They wanted him for this job. Dylan knew he could still refuse.

More than that, he had to refuse.

But then, on the verge of turning to do so, he caught another, more surreptitious movement near the saloon doors. As Marielle passed by, a wiry man in a long coat and hat stepped out from the shadows. He watched Marielle with avid interest.

Dylan recognized him as one of the Sheridan boys. Charley, he thought. Charley Sheridan. The wily ringleader. At the realization, Dylan’s blood iced over. Why the hell would one of those criminals be interested in Marielle Miller? Or, he saw further, in trading a shifty nod with the man carrying her?

As though sensing Dylan’s attention, Sheridan transferred his gaze from Marielle...to Dylan. Calculatingly, he narrowed his eyes. Whatever was going through his mind, it wasn’t good.

“I’ll do it.” Dylan turned, saw the tin star held by Marcus Copeland and closed his fist around it. “Starting now.”

* * *

Forty minutes after leaving the saloon, Marielle found herself at home with an elaborately bandaged ankle, an order to rest up with no dancing allowed for an impossibly lengthy period of at least four weeks...and a younger brother who’d been plumb tuckered out by the events of the evening.

With a sigh, she glanced at Hudson. In the glow of the lamplight, he sprawled across his cot in their small house’s front room, still wearing all his clothes and boots, snoring.

His familiar snuffle rent the stillness. He snorted, then turned over and flopped on his side, facing her fully now.

Looking at his peaceful face, Marielle couldn’t help giving a pensive smile. That was Hudson to a tee. Now that the kerfuffle was over—at least for him—he was oblivious to everything but his pillow. Her brother lived life as it was handed to him, neither striving for more nor complaining when there was less. Hudson was jovial and giving, simple and free.

He was as big of heart as he was massive of body, and although he hadn’t strictly amounted to much in the traditional sense—having no steady employment nor a wife and family to call his own—he was nonetheless content. Hudson tried sometimes, at Marielle’s urging, to find steadier work. He tried to grow up as fully as they both knew he needed to. But his every attempt ended up confirming the same foregone conclusion.

“I can’t keep on with that job, Mari,” Hudson would say, shaking his head with his soft brown eyes fixed on hers. “Who will look after you while you’re dancing? I can’t leave you.”

Every time, Marielle would soften. Every time, she would see the end arriving along with the beginning and be helpless to stop it. Because all she knew were dancing and sewing, and the former was much more lucrative than the latter. Plying her needle did not support two people nearly as well as dancing did.

It would have been churlish of her to quit performing. Yes, Hudson enjoyed drinking and throwing dice at the saloon a bit too much. Yes, she regretted that her employment kept them both in such overall corrupting quarters. Jack Murphy’s saloon was better than most—better than many she’d worked in during her journey westward after her mother had passed on—but it was still a place where men went to imbibe, carouse, fight and forget.

Sometimes, she thought, Hudson wanted to forget, too. Sometimes, she thought, Hudson missed New York, missed the backstage work he’d done at the fancy theater there, missed their mother and their absentee father most of all. But then her brother would make a joke or tug her hair or laugh over some memory of their time together back in the States—before it had all fallen apart—and Marielle would tell herself he was fine.

After all, he had no more to forget than she did. If her own memories didn’t send her to drink and smoke and carouse to excess, then why would they do so to Hudson? Men could handle their intoxicants better than women, anyway. Everyone knew that.

Her own father excepted, of course...

A knock at the door jarred Marielle before she could fall straight into the quicksand of those darker memories. Puzzled and a mite vexed, she stared across the front room at the door.

Another knock came. Louder this time.

She looked at her ankle, duly wrapped in bandages and properly elevated on a footstool as the doctor had ordered. Doc Finney had left her with a crutch, but she hadn’t tried it yet. He’d also left her dosed with a quantity of laudanum for the pain, which—on top of the whiskey Jack had pressed upon her—had made her feel quite woozy. Also, clearly, far too melancholy.

The third knock threatened to wake Hudson. That was more than Marielle would permit. Frowning anew, she grabbed her crutch and used it to lever herself out of her comfortable chair. She hobbled across the front room, paused to pull a warm blanket over Hudson against the chill that might come in with opening the door, then made her way to answer that summons.

Most likely, she knew, it would be Doc Finney, returned to offer still more instructions or admonitions or medications. He’d told her that the keys to healing her injury were circular compression, something called perfect immobilization, and a hearty dose of that flawless healer: time. It had all sounded like a lot of fancy terms for wrapping and resting, but Marielle had followed his directives, all the same. Her livelihood depended on healing her ankle, and quickly.

She couldn’t take chances. She had to get better.

Leaning awkwardly on her crutch, Marielle worked the lock, bracing herself for the cool springtime chill that was coming. In the evenings, in this mountainous part of the territory, frostiness crept in and then sank into a person’s bones. She didn’t want a chill on top of everything else.

She opened the door to an unexpected visitor. Startled, Marielle leaped back.

Or at least she tried to. Instead, she stepped onto her hurt ankle, received a jolt of pain for her efforts and yelped.

Behind her, Hudson stirred. He moaned. He began to snore again.

At the doorway, the goose bumps that spread over Marielle’s body had nothing to do with the weather—and everything to do with the man who lounged in her open doorway, canny and mean.

“’Evening, Miss Miller.” Charley Sheridan tipped his hat. It was too big for him—probably because he’d nicked it off a larger man—but no one would have dared laugh at that. Folks had heard tell of men getting knifed for less. Sheridan roamed his gaze over her. “How’s that ankle of yours doing?”

“That’s none of your business.” Marielle wished she had something—anything—to cover up with. Instead, all she had was the costume she’d danced in. Although she’d set aside her frothy, feathered headdress and had lost her spangled fan someplace. “It’s too late for company, Mr. Sheridan. Good night.”

Heart hammering, she tried to shut the door.

Charley’s shoulder prevented it. “Well now, that ain’t neighborly at all, Miss Miller. I come here to talk to you.”

Usually—and unfortunately—the Sheridans came to talk to Hudson. To get drunk with him and gamble with him. The four of them had been...well, Marielle couldn’t call them friends, exactly. But her brother had foolishly taken up with Charley, Peter and Levi once or twice. She hadn’t been able to stop him.

Their influence had come along with his time at the saloon—another thing for which Marielle couldn’t help blaming herself. If not for her job dancing, none of them would have crossed paths. Charley certainly wouldn’t have been there bothering her.

With a backward glance, Marielle made sure Hudson was sleeping. A disloyal part of her wished her brother would wake up and deal with this himself. It might have been nice to have had a genuine protector to rely on. But now, as usual, she had only herself. It was up to her to protect both of them.

Wasn’t that what she’d promised, when Mama had been dying?

“We have nothing to discuss.” Marielle jerked up her chin. “Certainly nothing that can’t wait until morning.”

It was late enough there, on the outskirts of town, that no one was about. The birds were stilled in the darkened ponderosa pines. The moon provided most of the light on her front porch.

“Ah, but this here can’t wait till morning.” Charley looked beyond her, into her house. “Ain’t you gonna invite me in?”

As he moved to take the invitation she pointedly hadn’t offered, Marielle shoved him with her crutch. Charley was too surprised to object outright. He obligingly made room, looking amused, while she clumsily half hopped, half lumbered her way onto the porch. She shut the door. At this point, being outside with him felt safer than being in her own house with—she had to face facts—a passed-out-drunk Hudson as her only protection.

Admitting as much, even to herself, made Marielle’s former wooziness subside, just a bit. Evidently, laudanum was no match for having a notorious outlaw appear at your door uninvited.

“What do you want, Mr. Sheridan? I don’t have all night.”

“Nope. What you have is...all of that.” His loathsome gaze traveled over her costumed form. His odious gesture indicated those dratted horsehair-augmented curves she’d given herself where the Almighty had chosen not to bless her himself. Charley’s appreciation was anything but divinely inspired, though. His attention felt despicable. “Men pay good money to see you, Miss Miller. That there’s the reason for it.”

He meant her figure, plainly. She shuddered with disgust.

“They pay to see me dance,” she specified. “That’s all.”

“If you believe that, you’re dumber than your brother.”

“I’ll thank you to leave Hudson out of this.”

At her fiery, protective retort, Charley guffawed. “There ain’t no leaving Hudson out of this. It’s all his damn fault.”

“What is?” Newly alert, she clutched her crutch.

“You’ll have to ask him about that.” Plainly comfortable in his thuggery, Charley leaned on her porch railing. “Point is, and the solitary reason I’m here talking to a woman at all, is that I’m not the only one who’s noticed you and your ‘dancing.’”

Marielle knew he meant something far baser. She scowled.

“That Coyle fella—he noticed your ‘dancing,’ too.”

Shivering, Marielle looked up at the night sky. She wished she were anywhere but here, with an outlaw’s whiskey breath and overripe saddle stink washing over her. She couldn’t help noticing the heft of Charley’s gun belt. She wished she hadn’t.

“Now that he’s gonna be the new sheriff in town—”

“Dylan Coyle? The sheriff?” Marielle almost laughed outright, despite her alarming predicament. “Impossible. The man can’t stay put long enough to use up a pound of coffee, much less see to maintaining law and order in Morrow Creek.”

Unfazed, Charley spat his tobacco juice over her porch railing. “Seems you’re wrong about that. I saw him pin on that shiny ole badge myself just a little a while ago.”

Dylan Coyle...the sheriff? In a single night? How could this have happened? She’d known the men’s club was meeting to discuss their errant sheriff and to fill his now vacant post with someone new. But...this? Dylan Coyle? In charge?

Marielle could scarcely envision Mr. Coyle with a badge to go along with his gun. Yes, she’d felt a certain...affinity toward him. Yes, he seemed to be a reasonably fair and intelligent man, if entirely too autocratic for her liking. But he was a drifter, though and through. There was no way they could count on him.

Had the whole town lost its wits?

With effort, she tried to regain hers. “This has nothing to do with me. If you’re interested in the new sheriff, why don’t you go speak with him yourself?” As if he would. The Sheridans were notorious in the territory. Only Sheriff Caffey and Deputy Winston had been oblivious to the dangers their gang had posed.

Now that their former sheriff had fled so mysteriously and his deputy had been duly locked up—events Marielle had learned about along with everyone else just days ago—lawlessness would obviously increase. It was no accident there was no one around to stop Charley Sheridan from harassing her at nearly midnight.

“I ain’t gonna speak with him.” Charley poked her chest. “You are. You’re gonna jaw your fool head off. You’re gonna do whatever it takes to get in good with the new sheriff—and I mean real good. After you done that, you’re gonna make sure he’s good and distracted while me and my boys get what’s coming to us.”

She couldn’t help stating the obvious. “Prison?”

“Tsk-tsk.” He shook his head. “If you weren’t laid up—”

“I’m strong enough to face you, aren’t I?”

“—and maybe crippled for good—”

Marielle gulped, hoping he wasn’t right. Fearing he was.

“—I’d make you pay for a disrespectful remark like that.”

Shaking from fright and cold, Marielle nonetheless stared Charley down. “I’m not going to do anything for you. Not now. Not ever.” She reached backward for her doorknob, all but itching to turn it and escape. “I’m going inside.”

Charley slammed his hand on the door before she could open it. His presence loomed over her, menacing and conscienceless.

“You Millers owe me,” he said. “Hudson cost me something. So far, he ain’t been able to pay. But tonight, when I saw you gettin’ all flirtatious with the new sheriff, I figured out another way for me to get what’s coming to me. I aim to get it.”

Irrationally, Marielle wasn’t most piqued by the threat inherent in that statement. “Flirtatious?” she repeated in an outraged tone. “I assure you, Mr. Sheridan, that I was not—”

“Yep. Flirtatious.” Charley seemed nauseatingly pleased by that. “I reckon Coyle will do damn near anything you ask.”

That was outlandish. Still...a part of her wondered if it was true. Coyle had been mighty insistent about staying by her side. Why would he have done that if he hadn’t liked her...a little?

Befuddled and worried, Marielle shook her head.

“All you have to do is get the new sheriff to trust you,” Charley told her coaxingly. “Get him to look the other way while Hudson helps us get what’s ours. That’s it. Your brother cost us. That’s not something I’m prone to forget.” He rested his hand on his gun belt, making his meaning plain. “Or forgive.”

“You leave Hudson out of this!” Marielle hissed. “You stay away from my brother. Otherwise, I swear I’ll—”

Charley’s chuckle cut short her useless threat. “Just ask him. Ask Hudson what he cost us—cost me. You’ll see. This is the only way. It’s the smart way.”

Mutely, Marielle shook her head. She wanted to leave, but Charley came closer, still keeping one hand on the door. His body pressed on hers, wiry and strong and scary. His whiskey breath panted against her neck. Cursing her skimpy costume, Marielle froze in place. She was in no condition to stop him.

“Unless,” Charley crooned lasciviously, “you’d rather do this another way?” He put his hand on her waist, making sure she felt the full force of his coercion. “I’d be willing to take you as fair compensation for my losses instead. My little brothers wouldn’t like it much. But I could always give them a turn.”

Marielle was personally virtuous and wholly innocent. In fact, Dylan Coyle hadn’t been far from the truth. She was the oldest dance hall spinster she knew. But that didn’t mean she didn’t recognize the abhorrent bargain Sheridan was suggesting.

With effort, she kept her tone even. “I don’t want any man, Mr. Sheridan.” She felt queasy as she added, “Not even you.”

He smirked, providentially believing her flattery. “You don’t know what you’re missing, dancer girl.”

I’m glad of it, Marielle couldn’t help thinking. What in the world had Hudson done to irritate the Sheridans this way?

“You must have had Sheriff Caffey in your pocket,” Marielle pointed out, still trying to sidestep this problem. There had to be another way—one that didn’t involve her or Hudson helping the Sheridans with their crimes. “Why not pay off Coyle, too?”

“Don’t you think I already tried that? He can’t be bought. What kinda lawman can’t be bought?” Seeming provoked, Charley spat. Then he tipped his oversize hat again. “I’ll be in touch, Miss Miller. I’ll be watching, too. You can count on that.” He nodded. “You just do as you’re told, and it’ll all be fine.” Wearing an intent look, Charley caught a hank of her hair. He wrapped it around his hand, holding her like a harnessed horse. His intention to control her was plain. “You understand me?”

Marielle jerked away. Stupidly, since Charley did not let go. He was mean enough to hurt her, casually and unthinkingly.

Eyes watering, she gave a scanty nod. “I understand.”

“Yep.” Charley sneered in response. “I knew you would.”

Then he released her abruptly and clomped off her porch into the night, leaving her well and truly caught in a problem that was even bigger than her injured ankle...and even more worrisome than her brother’s penchant for getting into trouble.

What, Marielle wondered as she hobbled her way back into the warmth of her small house, was she supposed to do now?

If Charley Sheridan would be watching, she guessed she’d better to try to make good on what he wanted—or at least make sure it seemed that’s what she was doing until she could finagle a better way out of her predicament. Ordinarily, Marielle would have reported Charley’s attempt to extort her help and been done with it. But she didn’t know the new sheriff. She certainly didn’t trust him. Until she could do that, she was stuck.

How exactly, she wondered further, did a woman “get in good” with a man she’d already antagonized multiple times in a single night? She hadn’t exactly been friendly to Dylan Coyle. In fact, she’d outright insulted him by calling him a drifter. She’d tried to make him pay for her lost work time and called him stingy right to his face. That wasn’t a promising start.

Beset with concerns, Marielle made her way across the front room. Thanks to her dancing training, she had good balance. She could manage on her crutch fairly well. But the events of this night had more than knocked her sideways—they’d terrified her.

Oh, Hudson, she thought. What have you done now?

And how, above all, would she get them both out of it?

Chapter Four

Marielle was sleeping fitfully when the sound of conversation reached her bedroom. Startled awake, she listened.

Hudson’s deep, murmuring tones filtered through the wall separating her chamber from the kitchen. Identifying that sound, Marielle relaxed. Sometimes her brother hummed or sang while carrying out chores around the house. That wasn’t unusual. He wasn’t a hard worker, but he was definitely a cheerful one. That was part of his charm—part of his carefree way of enjoying life.

Probably there was nothing wrong at all.

Except...today there was something different about the sound of Hudson’s voice. Today, her brother sounded...more manly?

Marielle jolted. Had Charley Sheridan returned? Was Hudson in danger? That would explain why he’d lowered his voice to a deeper, more threatening register. He was trying to be tough.

Poor Hudson was about as tough as a spring breeze. She had to do something. Pushing upright in her nightgown, with her long braid swinging carelessly down her back, Marielle grabbed for her dressing gown. She yanked it on. Then she leaned farther sideways and scrabbled for the crutch she’d left leaning on her bed table. She hated it already. She didn’t like relying on it.

Necessarily doing so anyway, she hurried toward the kitchen. The unexpected aroma of fresh coffee struck her first.

Slowing her steps, Marielle frowned. Had Hudson brewed a pot of coffee for him and his no-good “friends” to share?

Why had he ever gotten mixed up with them at all?

“Morning, Mari.” From the cookstove, Hudson grinned at her. He opened the oven door—at least remembering to shield his hand safely with a cloth—and withdrew a saucepan. Appearing very delighted with himself, he upended the saucepan. A slice of toast dropped out onto a waiting plate. “Did you sleep well? Would you like some toast? Or some coffee? I’ll get you some coffee.”

Goggling at him, Marielle shook her head. “Hudson...are you cooking?” He appeared to be trying to. Dear, incapable Hudson. The last time he’d tried to heat a tin of beans, he’d cut his hand, scorched the beans and all but ruined her saucepan.

“I surely am cooking!” her brother announced. “As usual,” he added in a proud tone. Perplexing her further with that preposterous boast, Hudson scurried to the table. He pulled out a chair, then helped her into it. Groggily, Marielle sat and then set aside her crutch while her brother urged, “You just have a seat right here. I’ll have that coffee straightaway.”

With that pronouncement, he beamed in the direction of the doorway...

...at Corinne Murphy, who’d apparently come to call on them.

Seeing her, Marielle started. “Corinne! Good morning!”

“Yes. Good morning to you!” Corinne blushed but continued on with her usual capable crispness. She sat poker-straight in her place at the table. “I’m afraid we woke you, Marielle. I’m sorry. I can certainly come back later, if you’d prefer. You’re not even dressed. Although I do have some rather pressing news to share, and I’m certain you’ll want to be informed of it, so...”

Suddenly aware of her state of dishabille, Marielle clutched her dressing gown. With her other hand, she smoothed her hair. She liked Corinne. She was the eldest of her boss’s four sisters, and—along with Nealie, Glenna, and Arleen—had relocated to Morrow Creek from Boston some time ago. All four of them seemed to have found the territory most invigorating.

“Of course I’ll want to know your news.” Doubtless, Corinne’s news had to do with their opinionated, unstoppable, freshly appointed sheriff, Marielle thought. Not wanting to let on that she’d already been informed of that particular tidbit—by Charley Sheridan, of all people—she smiled. “I’ll just go put on something a bit more suitable. It won’t take a moment.”

She couldn’t help marveling at Corinne’s presence—or at Hudson’s apparent interest in making her feel at home.

Demonstrating that interest, Hudson approached the table.

“Here you are, Miss Murphy!” He delivered the slice of toast—only slightly charred—with a flourish and plenty of jam. He watched her expression ardently. “It’s sweet, just like you.”

Oh, good gracious. Hudson was smitten with Corinne Murphy!

But that redheaded woman merely accepted her toast with a wry smile. “Thank you. I’ve never seen anyone make toast in a saucepan before, Mr. Miller. It’s very...enterprising of you.”

“You haven’t? We always do it that way,” Hudson bluffed.

But as he turned back to the cooktop, Marielle saw his bravado fade. He plainly considered enterprising to be on the same level as ridiculous. His crestfallen expression broke her heart. Bravely, he squared his shoulders for another attempt.

“I’d be happy to make you something else,” he offered.

“No, no. Thank you,” Corinne demurred. “This is fine.”

But their guest hadn’t touched her toast, and the slump to Hudson’s shoulders was the final straw for Marielle. She had to do something to salvage this situation. Otherwise, Hudson’s inelegant attempts to impress Corinne would come to naught.

He was her brother—the only family she had left in the world. Helping him was more important than anything else.

“Saucepan toast is very good,” Marielle assured Corinne, wincing as she leaned on her crutch. Her ankle still hurt a great deal. Likely, there was more painkilling laudanum in her future. After last night, she didn’t want to be dizzy with medication. She needed to be vigilant. There was no telling when Charley Sheridan might return. “The pan helps keep it...moist!”

“I see.” Contemplatively, Corinne examined her toast. “In that case, well done, Mr. Miller! You are an innovator, indeed.”

She tried a bite. Hudson nearly danced an elated jig.

Proud of herself for drumming up that bolstering fib, Marielle gave an encouraging glance to her brother. His relieved expression meant everything to her. All she’d ever wanted was for him to be happy—for him to never feel abandoned, as she had.

When Dylan Coyle had suggested that she was on the lookout for something, Marielle supposed that’s what it had always been.

But why in tarnation was lasting happiness so elusive?

“Although,” Corinne went on, furrowing her brow as she watched Marielle gamely struggle to get up from the table and get back to her room, “shouldn’t you be helping your sister? It looks as though Marielle could use a strong man’s assistance.”

“Nah. Mari won’t hear of it.” Puffing up his chest to look extra brawny, Hudson waved off that suggestion. Insensible of this opportunity to appear even stronger for Corinne’s benefit, he shook his head. “She’s mighty proud of her independence.”

Corinne appeared dubious. “Are you sure? At least pour Marielle some of that coffee you promised. You were brewing it when I arrived. It can’t all have been for me, can it?”

“’Course not.” Hudson shifted his gaze to Marielle, silently begging her not to reveal his customary postrevelry habit of sobering himself with gallons of strong coffee. He’d learned the tradition from their father. “It’s just... I had a powerful need for coffee, and Mari wasn’t up yet, so I had to fend for my—” Hudson broke off, belatedly catching sight of Corinne’s distressed face. “I was out pretty late last night,” he tried again, “what with the need to watch over Mari at Jack’s saloon and all. I might’ve had a mite too much to—” He stopped short, realizing too late that describing his raucous night would probably not endear him to someone as reputedly upright and no-nonsense as Corinne Murphy. After a despairing gulp of air, he tried again. “What I mean to say is, I’m going to have to learn to do a few things around here, now that Mari is laid up awhile. I’m going to be taking care of her. I can’t wait!”

Corinne looked amused...and maybe a tiny bit impressed, too. “You can’t wait to learn to cook, clean and quit carousing?”

Marielle wanted to bury her face in her hands. Hudson’s wild nights had earned him such infamy that his propensity for riotous behavior was discussed casually? Just after daybreak?

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